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The U.N. envoy for Syria held "substantial" talks Sunday in Damascus with Foreign Minister Walid Muallem on efforts to find a political settlement to the country's eight-year-long war.
"We have had very detailed substantial discussions," Norwegian diplomat Geir Pedersen told reporters after the meeting.
"We are now addressing all the issues so all the issues are at the table," he said, without specifying.
The envoy…

Syria and Iran say the United States is waging "economic terrorism" against countries that have different opinions and should pursue its aims through diplomacy instead.
Syrian state news agency SANA quoted President Bashar Assad as saying the Trump administration's decision to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization was an "irresponsible move."
Assad spoke at a meeting Tuesday with Iran's visiting Foreign…

Nobel laureate and former Islamic State captive Nadia Murad reproached the international community Tuesday, saying in the five years since thousands of ethnic Yazidi women were enslaved by the terror group in Iraq, not a single perpetrator has been brought to justice. "Thousands of ISIL elements are free. Thousands are detained without trial," Murad said, referring to the group by an acronym. "We come here today and ask that those perpetrators of genocide be brought to…

U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) this week announced the establishment of a new force made up of ethnic Armenians.
The SDF is a Kurdish-led multiethnic military alliance that played a key role in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) terror group in Syria.
The SDF liberated the last IS stronghold of Baghuz in eastern Syria last month and now controls more than one third of Syria's territory.
"We will follow the path of our martyrs…